


An Angel and a Demon Walk Into a Bar

by Petrichora_Vellichor



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, First Meetings, Gabriel Lives (Supernatural: Exodus), Gen, Meg Masters Lives, POV Gabriel (Supernatural), Part 2 will feature endgame Meg/Gabriel, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petrichora_Vellichor/pseuds/Petrichora_Vellichor
Summary: After escaping from the Empty, Gabriel wanders into a bar, where it turns out he’s not the only one back from the dead.
Relationships: Gabriel & Meg Masters, background Castiel/Dean Winchester, previous canonical Castiel/Meg Masters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	An Angel and a Demon Walk Into a Bar

**Author's Note:**

> The premise behind this fic is that when Jack exploded in the Empty during 15x18, he left it weakened for juuust long enough that a couple of angels and demons were able to make their way back to Earth.

Gabriel needed a drink.

A real one, not just something he could conjure up himself. It’d been a little under a week since he’d woken up in the middle of a field, dazed as all get-out and weaker than he’d ever been, but somehow _alive_. He’d done it. He’d actually gotten out of the Empty. 

At first, Gabriel hadn’t known exactly how he’d managed it. He remembered dying—getting stabbed by an alternate version of your brother in a parallel universe wasn’t exactly a forgettable experience—and then he was waking up to some sort of explosion somewhere he’d quickly realized had to be the Empty, because hellooo, he was dead. There’d been a lot of commotion then, with Gabriel and literally thousands of other angels and demons clambering and fighting at once as a loud, pained voice screamed for them to _BE QUIET_ , and the next thing he knew, he was lying face-down in a puddle of mud, alone except for a nearby cow. Gabriel had stumbled along until he’d found a small motel in the middle of nowhere, where he’d used what little power he could muster to charm a free room off the oblivious owner and then collapsed into bed the minute he’d locked the door behind him. 

A few days later, he’d jolted awake when angel radio had all but exploded in his head. Word on the wire was that his nephew, Jack, had replaced Gabriel’s dad as Heaven’s new big kahuna, and apparently the entire world had been gone for a while but Gabriel had slept through it, and _wait_ , Dean Winchester had _finally_ pulled his head out of his repressed bisexual ass and was last seen kissing the shit out of Gabriel’s younger brother Castiel, who was _also_ back from the Empty?! Whaaat???

Needless to say, it had been a lot to take in. Gabriel had spent the better part of the day listening intently and muttering “holy _shit_ ” as he caught himself up on all that had happened while he’d been out of the picture. When at last it seemed that there was no more new information, he’d dialed down the volume and decided that yeah, he was long overdue for a drink. He vaguely remembered seeing a bar on the other side of the motel parking lot, so he headed in that direction, opting to walk the short distance instead of flying—he was feeling much better after a few days of rest but still nowhere near full power, and there was no sense wasting energy. 

As he drew near the bar, however, he noticed that although the lights were on and country music was drifting out into the night, the front window had been shattered; a few pieces of jagged glass were still hanging in place, but the rest was nothing but shining shards on the ground outside. Gabriel paused; then, feeling more curious than concerned, he crept up to the sill and peered inside.

The place looked pretty much like what Gabriel had been expecting, with bad lighting and wood-paneled walls and a couple of old pool tables off to one side. At first, he thought it was deserted; then he noticed a lone figure at the bar.

It was a demon, but not a particularly powerful-looking one. She was sitting on a barstool, a bottle of Jack in front of her and a glass in her hand as she gazed off into space, nursing her drink. Gabriel reached out with his mind, quickly scanning the premises for any potential friends the demon might have brought with her, but no, she was the only one of her kind anywhere in the area. If push came to shove, Gabriel had no doubts that even in his current state, he could still best her in combat; however, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. After all, it had been a hell of a day in a hell of a week, and he’d come wanting a drink, not a fight. He headed over to the door and walked inside.

The demon must have sensed his presence, because she looked up the moment he crossed the threshold. Her eyes flashed black momentarily before snapping back to her vessel’s natural brown; however, when she addressed Gabriel, she sounded more annoyed than afraid. “If you’re here to kill me,” she said, fixing him with a glare, “at least let me finish my drink first.”

Gabriel arched a brow: she might not have been more than a run-of-the-mill black-eyed demon, but she had spunk; he’d give her that. “Simmer down, kiddo,” he drawled, “I’m not here to kill you, just looking for a drink.” He gestured toward the bar. “Mind if I join you?”

The demon raised a brow of her own, apparently surprised by his response, but eventually, she shrugged and turned back to her whiskey. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks.” Gabriel headed behind the counter, rummaging around until he found a clean glass; he plopped in two ice cubes and poured himself a drink. “Where’s the bartender, anyway?”

The demon waved dismissively in the direction of the restrooms. “Knocked out and tied up. He’ll be fine.”

“Mm, and the front window?”

“There was a biker gang when I first got here. They got handsy and didn’t want to leave.” She smiled darkly, adding, “That is, until I threw the biggest one out the window. They got the hell out pretty fast after that.”

Gabriel snorted. “Nice.” 

“‘Nice’?” the demon repeated, then scoffed. “Thought you were an angel.”

Gabriel snapped his fingers, manifesting a stool on his side of the bar; he sat down across from her, drink in hand. “I am. So?”

“ _So_ , last I checked, your kind and my kind didn’t exactly see eye to eye on what constitutes _nice_.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t see eye to eye with lots of people, especially not when they’re dicks. Sounds like the biker guys were, so yeah, nice. Besides,” he added, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile, “I’ve done _way_ worse.” 

The demon regarded him, then smirked. “Nice.”

“So,” Gabriel said, taking a sip of his drink. “You got a name?”

“Meg. You?”

For a moment, Gabriel considered inventing an alias; after all, it was in his best interest to keep a low profile until he decided just how involved he wanted to be in this whole post-Dad Heaven business. Still, he wasn’t really in the mood for lying, and besides, he could always erase himself from Meg’s memory if he had second thoughts. “Gabriel.”

Meg narrowed her eyes. “As in the archangel?”

“Oh, so you’ve heard of me?” Gabriel said, flashing a grin; then, noting the wariness in Meg’s expression, he added, “Hey, I’m just here for a drink, remember? You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Easy for you to say: I can’t kill _you_ just by thinking about it.”

Gabriel snorted. “No offense, kiddo, but if I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it before I even walked in. Suffice to say, I’m not thinking about it.” Then, seeing that she was still eying him suspiciously, he lowered his drink and looked at her frankly. “Do you want me to leave?”

“ _Would_ you?”

“Sure. I’m not one to stay where I’m not wanted, and last I checked, whiskey bottles are pretty portable. Just say the words, and I’ll get out of that pretty blonde hair of yours.” He smirked, adding, “That is, unless you’d rather throw me out the window.”

Meg was silent for a moment, apparently weighing her options; eventually, however, she shook her head. “Whatever. Like you said, if you were gonna kill me, I’d already be dead. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Gabriel cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

"I mean that up until a few days ago, I’d been dead for years.”

Gabriel sat back on his stool. “No shit. You were there too?”

Meg gave him a confused look. “The hell do _you_ mean?”

“In the Empty,” Gabriel clarified. “It’s where we go when we die. Whole bunch of black goo and eternal nothingness. That is, up till about a week ago, when the whole place went Chernobyl. Sound familiar?”

Slowly, Meg nodded. “Yeah. It does.”

“From what I’ve heard,” Gabriel continued, tapping his temple, “at least a couple of us got out, on your side and mine. Seems like the place stabilized eventually, though.”

“Any word on what caused it?”

Gabriel snorted; he reached for the whiskey and refilled both their glasses. “You ever hear of the Winchesters?”

********************

One hour and three-fourths of a bottle of whiskey later, and Gabriel had discovered that not only had Meg had close dealings with the Winchesters during the years leading up to her death, but she’d also apparently known his younger brother Castiel—and that, Gabriel gathered from the way Meg’s eyes softened when she asked about him, Castiel had been important to her, although she never explicitly said as much. Gabriel filled her in on everything she’d missed from the time Crowley had stabbed her up to the most recent updates he’d heard from angel radio, and by the time he was done, Meg was shaking her head in disbelief. 

“Damn,” she said at last. “So, this Jack kid—Lucifer’s son—he’s the new God?”

“Yep.”

“Wow.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gabriel, swirling his drink. “Should be interesting, seeing as how he’s only three.”

“And Castiel.” Meg met Gabriel’s gaze. “He’s...with Dean now?”

“Yeah. Seems like it.”

Meg nodded, looking down at the bar. “Huh. And here I was thinking they’d just keep dancing around each other like a couple of idiots.” She let out a hollow sort of laugh and reached for the bottle of whiskey. “Serves me right for getting my hopes up.”

Gabriel studied her, the pieces clicking into place. “You had a thing for my brother.”

Meg’s jaw clenched, and she filled her glass all the way to the rim. “Not one I ever got to do much about,” she muttered, “thanks to Crowley.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gabriel, a little surprised by just how much he meant it. 

Meg shrugged him off. “Yeah, well,” she replied, not meeting Gabriel’s gaze. “It’s not like it was ever gonna work out between us. He was always so caught up in whatever Dean was involved in, it wasn’t even funny. Besides, the hell would an angel want with a demon, anway.”

Gabriel found himself frowning; damn if there wasn’t a part of him that wanted to kick Castiel’s ass right about now. “For what it’s worth,” he said, leaning forward onto his forearms, “my brother never was the brightest bulb in the lamp; and regarding Dean, I once killed him over a hundred times just for kicks.”

 _That_ got Meg’s attention. “Really.”

“Yep, time loop, back before the whole Apocalypse thing went down. Took Sam forever to figure out what was going on and get them both out of it.” Gabriel smirked, adding, “And in the meantime, I got to play quirky death bingo with his older bro. Oh, and a few years later, I zapped them into TV Land for a bit. They looked like absolute idiots; it was fun.”

Meg looked at him for a moment, then scoffed and shook her head. “You’re really something, you know that?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Eh, I have my moments.”

And Meg, to his surprise, actually gave him a slight smile. “Apparently. So, feathers,” she said, raising her glass, “you going back to Heaven after this?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No way: too messy, and I’m not in the mood to help clean up. Figure I’ll keep lying low for a bit, then maybe see what things look like in a year or so. What about you? Hellward-bound?”

Meg scoffed. “Yeah, because I’m just dying to get stabbed the minute I walk in the door. No thanks. Thinking of just keeping to myself for now.”

Gabriel thought for a moment, then decided _aw, the hell with it_. “Need a place to stay?”

Meg shot him a look of what might have been amusement. “Why? You offering?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, yes I am." He nodded toward the front door. "I’ve got a good thing going on at that motel. If you want, I can set you up with a room while you figure out your next move.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. All I ask in return is that you keep the fact I’m alive to your smoking little self, because like I said, I’m looking to keep a low profile. So, what do you say?” Gabriel raised his drink as though to toast. “Deal?”

Meg studied him for a moment, then smiled. “Deal,” she said, and clinked their glasses together.

**Author's Note:**

> This can totally be read as a standalone, but if enough folks are interested, I might add a separate Part 2 work in which these two get together as a couple, so if that's something you'd like to see, let me know! :)


End file.
